The Novel Voices Distance Learning Program provides international community music organizations with free access to live, virtual lessons, workshops, and masterclasses. Now in its third year, Novel Voices has connected world-class faculty with two partner organizations: The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Palestine and Ghetto Classics in Nairobi, Kenya. These partnerships have resulted in over 1,500 virtual student interactions comprising private lessons, masterclasses, and professional development seminars. Specialized offerings have included ensemble coaching, teacher training, music theory classes, and orchestral conducting sessions. Administrators at each site propose the areas where instruction is most needed and choose the student musicians who will be best served by this distance-learning project. In partnership with faculty members from prestigious U.S. conservatories and performance communities, PMHU breaks through geographic and economic barriers and serves highly motivated and self-taught young musicians in isolated parts of the world where abject poverty encumbers daily life.
PMHU works carefully with each partner organization to identify and fill pedagogical gaps in their programs, always mindful to support, not displace, the teachers already at work at the local level. In fact, it’s often the top student musicians in these communities who act as tutors to the younger students around them. PMHU is perfectly positioned to offer a diverse education to these more advanced students, and our instructors focus on improving both their individual artistic capabilities as well as their skills and confidence as teachers.
While we strongly believe that distance learning can have a measurable impact on the lives of young students, PMHU recognizes the additional growth that is possible through in-person connection. Accordingly, a key area of future expansion for the Novel Voices program is annual in-person residency work that will complement and enhance year-round virtual instruction. In 2025, for the first time, PMHU will invest in this specific program expansion by sending a PMHU staff member and a quartet of student musicians from the Juilliard School to Ghetto Classics in Nairobi for ten days. The daily residency activities will include private music lessons; group presentations and workshops on topics such as score study, intonation, rehearsal techniques, and performance psychology; chamber music coaching; and orchestra and sectional rehearsals. On the final day of the residency, a community concert at Ghetto Classics will feature performances by PMHU musicians, the student orchestra, and student chamber music groups.
In exceptional cases, and in recognition of the transformative power of music education, PMHU offers mentorship and support to outstanding Novel Voices students who have been accepted into music schools and training programs in the United States. For the past two summers, PMHU has assisted select Ghetto Classics students participating in summer studies at Kinhaven Music School in Weston, VT. Additionally, we are proud to share that after one year of intensive online study through Novel Voices, a Ghetto Classics student has matriculated to Bard College where he is pursuing a dual degree in Viola Performance and Architecture. This remarkable young man intends to take his new skills back to Kenya to improve his impoverished community and to create more opportunities for young students like him to change their lives through music.
To learn more about the Vital Sounds Initiative, contact Program Manager Lynne Carr at lynne@pmhu.org.
